Dutch hackers sentenced for attack on government sites

Teens were unhappy about cabinet

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Five computer hackers in the Netherlands have been handed sentences ranging from work orders to youth detention for disabling a number of websites operated by the Dutch government.

A group of around 15 hackers, who called themselves '0x1fe Crew', carried out a Distributed Denial of Service (DdoS) attack last year on the government websites overheid.nl and regering.nl in a protest against recent cabinet proposals. The group claimed cabinet members were its sole targets. The websites, the central gateway to all information on cabinet policy in the Netherlands, couldn't be reached for five days.

The Dutch government immediately launched legal proceedings against the group and this week five hackers were convicted. The main suspect, who was given a 38-day detention sentence, says he will appeal. The 18-year-old claims there is no technical proof of his participation in the attacks. “They sentenced me because I was the spokesman for the group,” he told news site Webwereld.

It is first time in the Netherlands that anyone has been convicted for such an attack.